Presidential Yacht’s next port of call: Chancery Court
In July 1998, the former Presidential Yacht Sequoia tied up in the LewesRehoboth Canal at the dock leased by the Pilots Association for the Bay and River Delaware. Though no U.S. presidents were aboard, the vessel carried an impressive collection of photographs showing presidents from Herbert Hoover through Gerald Ford engaged in activities as varied as parties and diplomatic negotiations. Now the Sequoia is being mentioned in Sussex County conversation again. This time, however, that conversation is taking place in Chancery Court in Georgetown rather than in the canal in Lewes. But first, a little history.
Famed ship designer John Trumpy Sr. drew plans for the vessel, which was built in 1925 for a private owner. The government acquired the vessel a few years later and used it as a decoy in the South. Rumrunners would see the fancy yacht as a stronghold for wealthy Americans, and then undercover agents would arrest the contraband dealers when they tried to sell their goods to the disguised swells. Not long after, President Hoover requisitioned the Sequoia for official use, and the nation had a Presidential Yacht.
According to one Sequoia website, John F. Kennedy celebrated his last birthday aboard the vessel, and Richard Nixon sat at its piano and played “God Bless America” after deciding to resign his presidency. A day or two later, he left Washington, D.C., on a helicopter.
Jimmy Carter sold the Sequoia in 1977 in an austerity campaign. The government received about $250,000 at auction, but in ridding itself of the craft, it also shed about $800,000 in annual maintenance and operation costs.
Delaware River and Bay Authority arranged for the Sequoia’s 1998 visit to Lewes as part of a July Fourth celebration. The authority sponsored annual concerts at the time to benefit Beebe Medical Center. Sponsors of that event were invited to private tours of the vessel when it was in Lewes, and the public was later invited to tour as well. The authority was able to make arrangements through the Norfolk Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, which had taken ownership of the vessel after a former owner couldn’t pay restoration bills.
An unknown sadder-but-wiser former boat owner once stated that the definition of a boat is a hole in the water into which you pour money.
No doubt Jimmy Carter trusted that maxim when he sold the Sequoia. In the years since, several other owners have also had a taste of the Sequoia’s ability to soak up the greenbacks.
Currently, the vessel is exercising its attraction for money not for operation or maintenance, but for legal fees. Lawyers for the owners and would-be owners of the vessel are scheduled to be in Delaware’s Court of Chancery in Georgetown on Monday to continue their argument over terms of the sale and a final price.
As with most Chancery Court cases, the situation is filled with complications that might be of interest to law school professors but not so much for Cape Gazette readers. However, when Vice Chancellor Sam Glasscock decided on the latest chapter of the dispute at the end of July, he wrote: “The parties have expended disproportionately large legal efforts to place their respective positions before this Court. The initial loan, under which FE Partners [the would-be owners] provided approximately $2.5 million to Silversmith [the current owner], has resulted in Independent Counsel fees alone of $857,487.26.” (That figure is not a misprint.)
As agreed to by both sides of the issue, Glasscock appointed an independent counsel to determine how much financial baggage, in terms of liens, taxes and other liabilities, the Sequoia carried, which in turn would alter the final sales price. Of course there’s question about who will ultimately pay that one legal bill - not to mention all the others associated with the case, and whether the Sequoia’s current value will even exceed what is owed in legal fees and loans against her.
I first learned of this current situation when a friend mentioned the other day that the Sequoia is wrapped up against the weather and sitting high and dry at a boatyard on the lower Chesapeake Bay in Deltaville, Va.
Vice Chancellor Glasscock, commenting in his July 30 orders about the time and expense of the ongoing legal wrangling, confirmed my friend’s report: “Meanwhile, a tangible piece of American history sits deteriorating on a marine railway on the Western Shore, awaiting resolution of the legal issues that complicate its future.”
Now, about that boat you want to buy ...
